Tuesday, January 25, 2011

﻿It's been fucking freezing here lately. I know us Canadians aren't supposed to complain about the cold and that I should really be out there in a pair of cargo shorts like one of those walking, talking Molson Canadian beer commercial assholes.

You call this cold?! I grew up in... (Insert name of shitty town north of you here).

﻿But it's been -20C the last few days! Thankfully it's warmer in the city today. (If you call -4C warm). I think I might have even seen a little steam coming off a hobo.

But now instead of worrying about this:

Why can't a guy take a nude stroll over to Starlight Video to rent Fat Guy Goes Nutzoid without freezing to death?

I now have to worry abut these:

That's right, icicles. The silent killers. You're always hearing stories about them coming loose when the weather warms up and falling on unsuspecting pedestrians. They feel a drip, look up and Shtook! Right in the eye!

Like this but cold instead of hot.

﻿When I was a kid I always thought that an icicle would make the perfect murder weapon because it would just melt inside the victim, leaving detectives scratching their heads at the bloody pool of water beside the body. (This is why you should never let your kids read Judy Blume books.) It seems only fitting that the icy dagger at the heart of my fiendish adolescent plotting should break free from the eaves of Penthouse Dry Cleaners and pierce my adult heart.

Like this but ice instead of wood.

﻿It would appear that there is no way to avoid my imminent, frosty demise. Or is there?﻿ I remember reading about a guy called Vlad Tepes or as he was better known, Vlad the Impaler. I think he was the inspiration for Dracula. (And probably a dildo.) Anyway he liked to impale people on big sticks and watch them slowly die. If I remember right, he got so good at this that he could impale someone right down the middle but miss all their vital organs so they wouldn't die right away. If this is true than maybe I could utilize Vlad's art of impalement to save my own vital organs from a falling icicle by quickly shifting my body so as to let the frozen spear pass through it with minimal damage. But is it true? Was Vlad the Impaler even real? And could he really perform a full body piercing? It's Magic Internet Time.

Question 21: What was the deal with Vlad the Impaler?

Magic Internet Answer: Vlad the Impaler or Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia was a three time Voivode of Wallachia ruling from 1456 to 1462. Wallachia is a historical and geographical part of Romania that is now known as Southern Romania. The term Voivode translates roughly to Prince, Duke, or Count. It originates from a Slavic term that denoted the principal commander of a military force.

Not to be confused with Voivod, the principal commanders of sub-par Canadian thrash metal.

Vlad was also known by his sir name Dracula which meant son of the dragon. This was a reference to his father who had joined the Order of the Dragons. It is believed but not undoubtedly proven that Bram Stoker's Count Dracula was based on Vlad Dracula.

And by the looks of him, so was Sasha Baron Cohen's Borat. I like!

Vlad was renowned mostfor his resistance of the Ottoman Empire and for the cruel punishments he imposed on his enemies including impalement. Impalement was a form of torture and execution that was used all over the world and all through out history. There are records of a form or impalement that was designed to prolong suffering in the victim. It involved a blunt stake being forced up through the perineum. (Or what modern dudes refer to as the taint.)

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The stake had to be blunt so that it could push aside the internal organs instead of piercing them. The stake would eventually protrude through the upper sternum and rest under the chin. This would prevent the victim from sliding down the stake when it was hoisted aloft.

Hey, this impaler cheated and gave him a little seat. Woo look, doggies!

Vlad the Impaler hoisted many victims aloft of stakes. Thousands in fact. He would line the roads leading to his kingdom with them as a way to ward off approaching enemies. He also liked to arrange them in geometric patterns and he even created a virtual forest of impaled victims. According to these ancient woodblock prints he also liked to eat amongst his implements.

It's still nicer than Boston Pizza.

﻿But these prints also offer important insight into Vlad's impalement methods. As you can see all of his victims were impaled through either the frontal or dorsal aspect. None are impaled vertically.This means that Vlad did not practice a form of impalement that prolonged the life (and suffering) of his victims. So it would seem that you can not turn to Vlad Tepes for tips on how to lessen the damage a falling icicle will do to your body. I would also like to add that most icicles are fairly sharp and would likely pierce your organs, not push them aside. Furthermore the icicle would have to enter your body from below through the for mentioned taint. So unless you are walking on your hands I think it would be better to try and avoid falling icicles altogether instead of attempting to contort your body into the shape of an ancient torture victim or modern day death metal album cover.

Thanks Magic Internet. I don't know what I was thinking when I came up with this one. But I know what I'm thinking now...

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Last weekend the made for TV movie Escape from Gilligan's Island was on. I didn't watch it. Gilligan's Island was a pretty stupid show and I can't imagine that the TV movie they made 20 years later was any better. Apparently they make it off the island but then have trouble readjusting to society. Seeing as the movie was made in 1978 I assume they became insane discoing coke heads.

File Video: The effects of cocaine on society.

But that got me thinking. On Gilligan's Island﻿ they were always finding things on the island. They'd been on that god damn little island for years and yet it was, Hey I never noticed this Japanese sub here before little buddy.

I told you it was a stupid show.

And it was always something useful. Something that might help get them off the island. Well what if a suitcase full of blow washed up on shore? What would they do with that? In the real world they'd be so bored that they'd probably do it all and degenerate into some sort of primitive Lord of the Fliesesque state that culminates in the Skipper being eaten alive and Mary Anne being sacrificed to appease the empty suitcase that has become their new god in hopes that it refills its self.

The best meat's in the rump.

But what if they tried to make it useful. What could they do with it? I know the Professor would probably spout something about it being good as an anesthetic but does it have to end there? Maybe they could sprinkle it on food scraps and slowly get forest animals addicted to it until they could use it as bait. Can animals even get addicted to drugs? I've read about some getting drunk from fermented fruit and I know all chimps love to smoke.

But what about class A drugs? Better tell the head hunters to truss up Mary Anne and plug in my USB powered Still Beating Heart Remover because it's time for me to make a sacrifice to my god.... the Magic Internet.

Question 22: Can animals become addicted to drugs?

Magic Internet Answer: Yes, animals can most certainly become addicted to drugs. Many animals in the wild are known to eat certain fruits or inhale smoke from forest fires in order to obtain mind altering effects. Birds, in particular, are susceptible to this behaviour. Some birds even partake in a ritual known as myrmecomany. This involves a bird allowing its self to be covered by ants. The ants secrete a type of formic acid that sends the bird into an ecstatic state.

This:

Plus these:

Equals this:

Another good example can be seen in domesticated animals. Most people are familiar with cats' predisposition towards catnip and the effect it has on them.

And the joy and ecstasy that a dog gets from rolling in dead things.

There is even a story on National Public Radio about a dog that became addicted to licking toads.

The important point that is to be gleaned from this is that animals partaking in these behaviours are seeking out stimuli beyond the primal urges of food, reproduction and self-defence. But these are also examples of animals seeking out relatively natural stimulants in their habitat. In order to answer your question fully we must look at examples of animals being introduced to human narcotics. One would think that a perfect test subject would be a drug sniffing dog. Here is an animal that is constantly introduced to a variety of class A narcotics.

The Aristocrats!

﻿There is a wide spread rumour that some handlers, particularly in third world countries, quick-train their dogs to sniff out drugs by getting the dog addicted to drugs and then rewarding it with drugs. It is very doubtful that this is true. A dog's superior sense of smell allows it to break down scents into their component parts. Most drug sniffing dogs are trained with a sudo. A toy covered in one of the component chemicals found in drugs that is non-toxic. When a drug sniffing dog is seeking out drugs, it is actually seeking out it's toy. When drugs have been successfully found, the dog is given its toy and forgets all about the drugs it found. Having a drug sniffing dog that is actually addicted to drugs would be very counterproductive and of little real use to law enforcement.

File Photo: Dog of little real use to law enforcement.

There is however a group of French and British scientists that have successfully proven that rats can become addicted to cocaine and display the same signs of addiction as humans. Researchers at the National Institute for Research and Health in France trained rats to poke their noses through holes in their cages to obtain cocaine. Of all the rats that recieved cocaine about 17% were concidered addicts.

The 17%

And of those 90% resumed cocaine use after being forced to abstain for 30 days. These results were published in an issue of Journal Science. A similar study published in the same issue had scientists at Cambridge University showing that addicted rats would still pursue cocaine even if it resulted in electric shock. Seeking drugs despite punishment is a true sign of addiction. So provided that Gilligan and the Skipper too could devise a way to allow the island's animal inhabitants to begin ingesting the drug, it is quite possible that they could use it as bate in future traps.

Or better yet, Magic I, they could all get torn apart by coked up monkeys. Either scenario is fine by me, as long as Thurston Howell the III makes it out alive. I kinda liked him.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

You know what I read yesterday? I read that Japanese scientists are going to clone a woolly mammoth!

As a staunch supporter of mad science I think this is wonderful news. For those of you that peed your pants during grade 4 history and had to be escorted down to the nurse's office by the hall monitor to be forced into a pair of jogging pants from the lost and found: a woolly mammoth is a great ancestor of the modern elephant that became extinct about 10,000 years ago. Apparently these Japanese scientists are going to insert mammoth genes into an elephant embryo and then insert that embryo into the uterus of an elephant in hopes that the elephant gives birth to a woolly mammoth! I wonder how the elephant's mate will feel when he sees the baby? Maybe they'll have to go on Maury Povich to sort it all out.

It'll be like this but with a lot more trumpeting.

And for those of you who say that it's impossible to extract usable DNA from a long dead frozen specimen...

WRONG!

﻿These mad scientist have already done it. They successfully cloned a mouse with DNA taken from a mouse that was frozen for 16 years. The mouse chose to freeze its self after watching 11 seconds of the newly released movie It's Pat.

What is it with scientists and mice anyway? They make them run through mazes, they make them wear lipstick, they shave their little mouse heads and attach wires to their brains. Hey remember when they grew a human ear on one?

Yeah, if we ever get invaded by some alien race that evolved from mice, we're in BIG trouble.

Squeak, squeak squeak. TRANSLATION: You're all in big trouble

Now I know a lot of you have questions and concerns regarding this mammoth cloning. Please allow me to enlighten you.

1) Isn't it morally wrong to clone something?

Maybe. But we're already doing it anyway so what the hell. In fact I hear that Disneyland keeps clones of all the Princesses in a bunker below Space Mountain for when the current ones die of heat exhaustion or get knocked up by Goofy. Apparently that happens a lot.

Rubbers don't fit on my lipstick. Huy-huyuck.

2) Mammoths became extinct for a reason. Shouldn't we leave them that way?

Why? We are always trying to save other species from extinction. We're just taking a little longer with this one. And besides, look at the Dodo Bird. It became extinct over 300 years ago and people still won't shut-up about it. The Dodo has become the poster bird for extinct species. And look it at. It's the dumbest looking bird I've ever seen.

In fact it's so dumb looking that its name has become synonymous with being dumb. The woolly mammoth would be a way cooler looking spokesman and it would be alive. Plus the word mammoth means huge and that's something everyone wants to be.

File Photo: Everyone's goal.

Speaking of that, did you know that Thomas Jefferson was the first to use the word mammoth to describe something big? It's true. He was an avid fan of paleontology and used it to describe a rather large wheel of cheese that he was given.

3) If we do clone mammoths, will that mess up our echo system?

Maybe. But I doubt it. We would have to clone lots of them. And from what I hear they only eat tundra grass. Do you eat tundra grass? I sure as hell don't. If there is some animal that eats tundra grass, it will just have to learn to eat mammoths. Problem solved.

4) Isn't a woolly mammoth too big to come to full term in an elephant's uterus?

I don't know. What do I look like a mammoligist? If it is too big they could always try putting it in that horrible Kate woman from John & Kate plus 8. Her uterus has got to be the size of a dump truck. I hear TLC is having the Little Couple move in there for season 4.

Hey that reminds me. Did you ever see that show on Fox where all those midgets raced an elephant while pulling a jumbo jet?

5) Are there any practical uses for mammoths?

Given mans natural instinct to exploit every living thing on the planet, this was bound to come up. Many scientists believe that the reason why woolly mammoths had such long tusks was because they used them to push snow out of the way to get at the tundra grass underneath. (Again with the tundra grass!) So we could use them as snow plows.

All we would have to do is put a blue light on its head and teach it trumpet that beeping sound when it backs up. Sure they might gore a few children that throw snow balls at them for ruining their snow days but to appease the parents we'll just clone their kids back to life.

6) What do they taste like?

One of the dominant theories as to why the Woolly Mammoth became extinct is that it was hunted into extinction by early man.

So that means that they must be delicious. I've also read that woolly mammoths had numerous sebaceous glands all over their body that secreted greasy fat into their fur to insulate them better. In other words, expect to see them added to the McDonald's Extra Value Meal menu by 2016.

I could go on and on but the point is that I'm just not seeing a downside to this. Cloning woolly mammoths is the answer to all out problems. We can look at them. We can pet them. We can ride them. We can attach missles to them. And yes, we can even eat them. So I say bring it on mad science. Up with Woolly Mammoths!

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

It was a good movie but I don't know if I can recommend it. After seeing it I'm afraid to eat anything!

In my mind this:

Is now this:

And sure you could say, Well just stay away from fast food and processed foods and you'll be fine.

WRONG!

You see there's a part in the movie where they talk about how they take unripe tomatoes from South America ship them up here and then use ethylene gas to ripen them. Ethylene gas! I'm sure I've heard of that before. And you know what I think it is? I think it's dead body gas. I know methane gas is fart gas.

But is ethylene gas dead body gas?

Is the gas that's making this guy float being used to make your apple a Red Delicious?

File Photo: Pale Notsodelicious

I don't want to be eating a dead body salad. Especially now that I know what they taste like. Say who was it that told me about that? Maybe they know a thing or two about ethylene gas. Come to think of it I believe it was the Magic Internet. Stock up your usb mini-fridges folks. We're going in.

Question 21: Is ethylene gas dead body gas?

Eat Mo' Moon Pies!

﻿Magic Internet Answer: It is a good thing that I do not require organic matter. I live off of human stupidity. And as you can see I am growing and growing and growing.

Now let me digest this latest meal that you have put forth. Ethylene gas is in no way related to dead bodies. When a corpse decomposes and bloats the gases that well up from within it are a mixture of hydrogen sulphide, carbon dioxide and methane. Ethylene is a form of gas given off naturally by plants but it can also be synthesized through man-made processes such as combustion.

﻿Please try to shut up Johnny. Ethylene acts as a ripening hormone and plays a regulatory role in plant growth. Plants, fruits and flowers have receptors that absorb free ethylene in the atmosphere. The absorption of ethylene stimulates the plant to produce more ethylene and the overall result is a hastening in ripening and ultimately the death of the plant. This is why when you put bananas or an avocado in a paper bag they ripen faster. The confined space causes them to absorb, produce and reabsorb more ethylene gas.

Hi, I'm Ethyn. Do you guys like to party?

﻿Ethylene was first discovered by the German physician J. J. Becher sometime around 1669.

File Photo: J. J. that discovered ethylene.

File Photo: J. J. that discovered dynomite.

In 1795 a group of Dutch chemists that were studying the properties of ethylene discovered that oil could be made from it by mixing ethylene with chlorine. This discovery gave ethylene its earlier name olefiant gas (oil-making gas) it also lead to the discovery of ethylene as a fruit and vegetable ripener. Lemon growers would store green lemons in sheds heated by kerosene heaters until they turned yellow and ripened enough to be sent to market. When the growers began heating their sheds by more modern methods they found that the lemons did not ripen as quickly. It was the small amounts of ethylene that was aiding in the ripening.

So you see people have been using ethylene to ripen food for quite a long time. It is not the evil invention of giant food conglomerates and they are certainly not ripening fruits and vegetables in rooms full of dead bodies. In fact ethylene gas is actually used in the production of corpse deodorizing products. Smelleze makes a deodorizer specifically for funeral homes and morgues that comes in a reusable hanging pouch.

That's great Magic Internet. Now I know what to get my niece and nephew for Christmas when they grow up and become goths. High five!